


Mirage

by sansalannistark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Jaime is Sansa’s bodyguard, Mild Sexual Content, Not very positive Oberyn/Sansa, Romance, Set in Dorne, Unrequited Love, Very Jaimsa centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 12:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13008009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansalannistark/pseuds/sansalannistark
Summary: It hurts to watch her with Oberyn, never mind that he is her husband. It hurts to see the woman he loves desire another, but that is the way of things and he must bear it until he can no more.





	Mirage

**Author's Note:**

> A fun little idea that popped into my head, though ‘fun’ may be subject to opinion ;) as always, comments are highly appreciated! I recently discovered the O/S ship but of course I had to combine it with Jaimsa. A big thanks to the lovely peeps on tumblr above been so inspirational and really sparked my creative flow :)
> 
> Jaime and Sansa POV. One shot for now. M to be safe

Jaime is not sure why he ever agreed to this. Mayhaps he did not love Sansa when she married Oberyn, but he had not been blind to his own feelings. He knew jealousy, had already tasted its vile sting, but that had not stopped him from remaining by Sansa’s side, as much as it might have pained him. It would have been easier if he had let her go: he isn’t sure why he still remains. It is not as if Sansa will look up and decide she prefers the one handed Lannister cripple over her wedded husband, a man who has bestowed her naught but kindness and brought hidden smiles from her shadowy depths. You made her happy too, in King’s Landing. Long before the viper, his mind persists, but he brushes the thoughts aside. She is happy here, now. With him.

Sansa cries out from the shoreline, grinning brightly as she skims the waves, the frothy surf meeting her toes and her husband laughing as he watches her. Oberyn’s hands are on his hips but when she darts out from the waters edge they reach out to capture her body, encircling her waist and clutching her tighter against him.

Jaime’s stomach churns and he almost brings up the fruit he had consumed earlier. The salt air tastes bitter on his tongue and settles his stomach for a moment, but every time he chances at glance at Sansa and her husband, it roils once again. In the end he can no longer look at Oberyn, but Sansa is another matter. She turns at one point, caught in the middle of a smile and her face stops mid-laugh. Jaime could swear he sees her eyes fade a little as her lips fall, but then Oberyn begins to tickle her ribs through the light dress she wears and Sansa - reclaimed - does not look at him again.

When Oberyn tugs her down on top of him on the sand, Jaime does indeed throw up in the dunes. The smile has remained on her face when he builds up the courage to look back, wiping a hand across his mouth and grimacing. If Sansa asks him later, he will tell her it was the food. It won’t be the first lie he’s told her.

* * *

 

They arrive back at the palace late into the evening. Jaime has not looked at Sansa since they left the beach but he notes from his peripheral that Oberyn has scooped her up in his arms as she murmurs things to him. Jaime does not have to look to know the Prince is smiling at her and his breath clogs in his throat, recalling the warmth and the sharp lemony flavour that is so Sansa. He wishes he could go back. Memories of carrying her in his arms fog in front of him until Oberyn - he feels rather than sees - is looking at him and when Jaime meets the man’s gaze, his expression is twisted, a mirrored darkening of the eyebrows that Jaime knows to be possessive - just as he himself used to look at Cersei. Oberyn shuts the chamber door with a half-slam and Jaime takes up his usual post by the door, the viper’s stare branded in his mind.

Usually when Jaime takes up his post, he thinks of her, imagining a world where Oberyn Martell does not exist, where he is somehow worthy of her, but whether it is by some cruel, shattering trick of the gods, or simply that Oberyn knows what he feels for her, Jaime’s thoughts are interrupted by a low moan. He thinks for a moment it to be Ellaria, but he knows that timbre. That is no paramour, no whore.

He cannot stop himself when he clenches his eyes shut, bites down of his lip so hard that he swears it will bruise. Jaime’s mind screams with a cacophony akin to the howls of a stormy sea, his mind raging, his heart pounding like he is a boy again, trying to sleep through the storms at Casterly Rock. He could bear watching her affection for the Prince for the promise he made to protect her, but this? This is too much, too far, too brutal.

He can hear Sansa panting through the door, her moans growing with each passing second and he hears Oberyn say something (he is glad not to hear it, for he might have killed the man). Sansa cries out: loud, desperate, feverish.

“Oberyn!”

He cannot stay. He does not want to leave but seeing her with him and hearing her cries as he pleasures her has his heart in shreds and mauled to pieces. So he leaves, striding away from the place as briskly as he dares. The guards throw him strange looks but he does not care. The storm has cowered him as it did many years ago.

“Ser Jaime?” It is Trystane’s voice but Jaime sees only Oberyn and he has not the strength.

“I’m leaving. Please tell your uncle and father I have departed. I’m sure you’ll be happy to see me go. It’s about time.” Jaime does not look at the Prince but continues walking even as the boy hawks at him.

“Ser- Ser Jaime!” He stammers, stumbling after the knight. “What about Princess Sansa?”

Jaime sees only red, only Oberyn and Sansa writhing, caressing, kissing. “To hell with it. Sansa is fine. Just fucking fine.”

Trystane tries again but Jaime is gone before the boy can even manage another word. It isn’t difficult to find his horse, saddle up and leave. He has no possessions worth taking, nothing that ties him here. Not any more. She saw to that.

It is only when he reaches the port that he falls apart. In the darkness of the night, Jaime feels tears in his eyes and he might have chided himself for his weakness, but for the fact that he feels so hollow, an empty cavern where his heart once lay. To blame Sansa for this... that is something he never should have done. His sweet girl, she is blameless is most everything. It is he to whom the blame belongs. He who is its sole victim. He never should have fallen in love with her in the first place.

  
“You fool. You fucking fool.” Only the balmy night air and the steady ocean catch his words. At least his humiliation and his loss are the subject of public mockery.

He does not see the light of dawn until they are far from Sunspear. Far from her, even if every glint of sun on the pommel of his sword conjures images of Sansa’s hair in the bright innocence of the Dornish morning.

* * *

 

When Sansa wakes she forgets for a moment where she is until she sees the sun-darkened limbs wrapped around her. Her husband’s arms around around her torso and waist. Sansa glances down anxiously, her eyes flitting across their bodies to discern if she can extract herself from his caging arms without waking him. Thankfully, Oberyn is a heavy sleeper, and his snores continue even as she slides out of his grip, wrapping a gown around her body. Her body is sticky with sweat her arms hug her own stomach as she makes for the door, stumbling with the ache between her thighs. She did not desire her husband as he her, though it was past time she lay with him and in truth, the pleasure was a good distraction from the pain of Jaime’s silences.

She had seen him throw up, seen the face he had made as he watched her and her husband on the beach. Until then her feelings had known nothing but the crushing burial beneath her conscience, her marriage and his possible rejection, but when she sees Jaime’s pained features in her mind it falls together. _He loves me._ Sansa berates herself for her oblivious ignorance, her inability to see the truth even when it has been quite staring her in the face, quite literally. All those moments in King’s landing were not some friendly comfort. She wonders if even then if he had known what it was he felt for her. She had not been willing to admit it, and then Oberyn had married her and she had barely thought about desire.

It was not desire that had driven her to Oberyn’s bed after months of marriage. Lust, maybe. Need, certainly. Never love, for as much as Oberyn cherishes her, he is too unlike her to ever understand her like Jaime does. _My sweet Jaime,_ she thinks. _I’ve hurt him_. She wishes ardently that it had been him. It _should_ have been him. She had almost cried out his name last night, thinking at the time that she had been confused, that she had been thinking too much about Jaime as they returned to the palace. Now she knows - knows, and intends to do something about it.

Sansa pulls open the door, smiling softly but Jaime is not there and the realisation tears into her innards like glass and the strangling cry that leaves her throat is inhuman. He’s heard. He’s _heard_. Sansa clutches at the walls, grasping and gasping, fingers dragging across the stone and pulling at the skin until beads of floor coat her fingertips but she falls to the floor all the same. Jaime knows that she has lain with him and now he’s gone. Sansa sobs, the motion wracking her small frame as she curls around herself protectively. She’s lost him to some mindless fuck and she doesn’t know what can possibly mend the gaping tear that slices through her. Despite the heavy beating of the Dornish sun and the blistering heat on her skin, her insides are as cold as the dead of winter. Oberyn is stirring but Sansa cannot stay to look at him. She has to leave and she staggers to her feet, bloody fingers still clutching the wall. Oberyn coughs from within their chambers and it is all the signal she needs, her feet beginning to pound the ground as she runs and his voice chases behind her.

* * *

She can barely see for tears but her grey steed seems to understand what her sodden cheeks and stuttering words mean for she makes it to the port briskly, brely waiting for the horse to stop before she is stumbling off and running for the pier. People call out at her as she runs, her robe flying behind her as her blurry blue eyes seek the familiar figure she longs for. She comes to a halt at the end of the pier. _He isn’t here._ Sansa turns, red hair tumbling past her face as she scans the expanse of the port. _He isn’t here._ Sansa half expects to fall down on the sea worn planks of the pier but instead she feels lightheaded, but strangely anchored. She longs to go after Jaime, take the next ship and leave, be it to him or to Lys, or Bravvos, or Essos where he might come for her and they could live in peace - no Oberyn, no war, no one choosing their fates for them, but she is not a silly little girl anymore. Sansa cannot leave, not married as she is to the viper, but it does not mean he cannot have Jaime. She will write, she will tell him that he is not alone, not anymore. Even if she must remain here in this marriage, she will not be loveless. She will not give up Jaime, her love, her life. _My lion, my precious golden lion._

In the sun’s lazy gaze, she almost believes Jaime could be there, watching her protectively from afar. 


End file.
